Although the Republic of the Philippines is not generally recognised as a violent or fragile state, since ex-Davao mayor Rodrigo Duterte was elected President on 30 June 2016, the country has been regularly making the headlines. CSG Senior Fellow Alix Valenti explains why Duterte’s war on drugs has proved to be particularly bloody.

Few countries have undergone security sector reform more profoundly than Japan after World War II, yet Japan has not been a leading voice in this field, despite a foreign policy centered on human security and institution building. A new international SSR assistance platform would enable Japan to support enhanced governance, oversight, and professionalism of the security sectors of fragile states while further raising its profile in UN peacekeeping and the sustaining peace agenda.

This post examines the recent false positives scandal in Colombia, which involved the arbitrary execution of thousands of poor, marginalised civilians, by Army personnel. It is argued that peacebuilding efforts will be unsuccessful without addressing impunity, deficiencies in the security sector, and socio-economic inequalities which led to these crimes.

This article delves into the ever-evolving field of gender security sector reform, in order to uncover its shortcomings and subsequently provide novel to the discipline. It argues that practices within the field of gender sensitive police reform display radical alternatives to overcome SSR’s issues, specifically through its focus on ‘gender-mainstreaming’ as a transformative approach to reform.

The power of legitimacy is increasingly invoked by scholars, practitioners, and donors as a crucial prerequisite for any international peacebuilding project. This short article disenchants the almost magical powers accorded to legitimacy via three research findings: First, it shows the causal mechanism behind legitimacy’s impact; second, legitimacy works only in certain contexts and situations; third, it is the only direct power international peacebuilding operations wield.

Part three of three on the CSG’s Special Series from Senior Fellow David Law which provides a security sector perspective on the ongoing crisis in Mali and focuses on stabilization and security sector reform challenges to address in this context.

Part two of three on the CSG’s Special Series from Senior Fellow David Law which provides a security sector perspective on the ongoing crisis in Mali and focuses on stabilization and security sector reform challenges to address in this context.

Part one of three on the CSG’s Special Series from Senior Fellow David Law which provides a security sector perspective on the ongoing crisis in Mali and focuses on stabilization and security sector reform challenges to address in this context.

The Centre for Security Governance (CSG) is pleased to present a new three-part blog contribution from CSG Senior Fellow David Law which provides a security sector perspective on the ongoing crisis in Mali and focuses on stabilization and security sector reform challenges to address in this context.

This article analyzes the impact on democracy and governance of the protests and the state of emergency in Ethiopia declared by the government. The author argues that, although messy, and perhaps disruptive to Ethiopia’s economic progress, what is needed is genuine democratic dialogue to solve this crisis.

Poverty and socio-economic inequalities are inextricably linked with crime and conflict in Colombia. Unless they are addressed the current peace process will be unsuccessful and crime and insecurity will continue to afflict Colombia and its people, particularly the more vulnerable and marginalized.

Using evidence from Afrobarometer surveys, the authors analyze public perceptions of security in Nigeria and Kenya and the implications this has on countering violent extremism. They focus on issues of public trust in security forces, corruption and the success and failure of security-led approaches vs development-oriented approaches to violence and violent extremism.

CSG’s Antoine Vandemoortele interviews Sr. Fellow Paul Biddle, Strategic Police Advisor to the UK Embassy in Baghdad, the Coalition Joint Task Force Operation “Inherent Resolve” and the Governor of Anbar in Iraq between February and May 2016. Part 1 discusses Biddle’s role as Strategic Police Advisor as well as the context and key challenges of police reform in Anbar province.

The highly-contested character of Haiti’s national elections in 2015 and the larger governance crisis that endures today, have sharpened debates about the role of the Haitian National Police and its development in recent years. The authors offer a careful, nuanced assessment of uneven HNP progress in five areas.

A new blog series which explores the security sector reform (SSR) dimension of Canada’s planned re-engagement with peacekeeping and peace operations in Africa. This four-part series focuses on the main options being speculated upon for troop deployment: Mali, the Central African Republic (CAR), South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

CSG’s Antoine Vandemoortele continues the interview with Paul Biddle, Strategic Police Advisor to the UK Embassy in Baghdad, the Coalition Joint Task Force Operation “Inherent Resolve” and the Governor of Anbar in Iraq between February and May 2016. Part II addresses issues of lessons learned and future areas of work to create a sustainable policing model in Anbar province.

In this blog post originally published on the IPI Global Observatory, Geoff Burt, Senior Fellow at the Centre for Security Governance, analyzes the political challenges Haiti faces in its attempt to address key security governance issues, including paramilitary action, gang violence and the reinstatement of the Haitian armed forces.

SSR has become a key component of international donors’ efforts to improve security in conflict-affected and developing states. Its success, however, has been limited because program designers rarely fully comprehend, how developing countries’ security sectors actually function. How then can we better understand the impact of neo-patrimonial practiceson developing countries’ security sector?

This article seeks to examine the determinants of security sector reform outcomes in post-conflict countries and assess the potential of the ‘infrastructures for peace’ framework in restructuring the security sector. It argues that security restructuring is less viable merely with informal architectures and that creating multi-layered infrastructures is essential.

Many millions have been spent trying to reform the security sector in developing countries. But have these investments paid off? Are security actors more accountable, responsive and able to deliver for their communities? Perhaps most importantly, are people safer as a result?

Hate speech and proffering war online using social media, particularly Facebook has contributed to South Sudan’s return to conflict. As Juba burns, the role of social media, online hate speech and rumor is becoming clear.

Prevailing approaches to security sector reform (SSR) have tended to stress Westphalian notions of the state characterized by legal-rational norms and institutions. Thus, SSR processes concentrated on the formal arrangements of the state and its security and justice institutions. Yet, such approaches are fundamentally at variance with the underlying realities of the African context, where many political and social transactions take place in the context of informal norms and systems.